China is experiencing another Covid-19 outbreak caused by the Delta variant, with dozens of infections detected in the southeastern province of Fujian less than a month after the nation’s last flare-up was contained.
The cluster was detected thanks to routine testing in local schools, where two students tested positive on Friday. Their father, who returned from Singapore in early August, was also found to have been infected.
The man did three weeks of quarantine and took 10 tests with no signs of infection before returning to the community, underscoring how difficult it can be to identify every case. China’s so-called Covid Zero policy relies on aggressive testing and contact tracing.
Key developments:
Auckland lockdown extended
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern extended a strict lockdown in the largest city Auckland as an outbreak of the Delta variant proves difficult to vanquish.
Auckland will remain at Alert Level 4, the strictest setting, for at least another week while the rest of the country, which exited lockdown last week, will remain at Level 2, Ardern said.
She is persisting with an elimination strategy that has served New Zealand well to date, but numbers have picked up in recent days, with 33 new cases reported on Monday.
Delta stabilizes in Sydney
The Delta-strain outbreak centered in Sydney is showing signs of peaking as New South Wales state begins easing some restrictions and remains on track to inoculate more than 70 percent of its adult population by mid-next month.
The state recorded seven deaths and 1,257 new infections overnight, pushing its seven-day moving average of daily cases to the lowest since Wednesday, according to Bloomberg calculations.
When 70 percent of the adult population is inoculated, NSW authorities plan to reopen the state more fully.
Tourist opening in Vietnam
Vietnam’s Phu Quoc Island will be the country’s first tourist destination reopened to fully-vaccinated foreign visitors beginning in November, according to the government web site, which cited the tourism administration.
Foreign travelers will be required to have received their second vaccine shot at least 14 days before traveling to the island in the southern province of Kien Giang and no more than 12 months ahead of arrival.
This comes even as Ho Chi Minh City will extend its Covid-19 lockdown for most areas through the end of September as officials work to roll out green cards for vaccinated residents that will allow them more movement freedoms, Vietnam Television reported on its web site.
Cases drop in Thailand
Thailand reported 12,583 new Covid-19 cases, the lowest one-day tally since July 20, according to government data on Monday. The Southeast Asian nation reported 132 deaths in the past 24 hours, the lowest daily fatalities since July 30. The lower tally comes as Thailand keeps strict containment measures in 29 provinces considered as virus hot spots at least until the end of September to prevent a spike in infections.
West Virginia hot spot
West Virginia reported more than 2,200 new cases on Sunday, as the state endures its worst outbreak of the pandemic. As cases begin to level off in hot spots like Florida and Missouri, West Virginia now has one of the worst per capita outbreaks in the US, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with intensive-care cases breaking pandemic records and hospitalizations almost even with previous highs.
The outbreak, driven by the Delta variant, is expected to get worse. “The weather is going to get bad, and absolutely we’re going to be overrun in our hospitals, and there are going to be decisions that have to be made on who is going to live and who is going to die,” Governor Jim Justice said at a press briefing on Friday, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported. “It’ll be terrible beyond belief.”
The Republican governor strongly urged people to get vaccinated, though he added that he opposes vaccination mandates.
South Africa eases restrictions
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa eased coronavirus lockdown restrictions in a bid to revive an economy reeling from the effects of the pandemic and a week of deadly riots.
The move to virus alert level 2 from level 3 comes as Covid-19 infections drop and will allow for greater activity in an economy seen contracting in the third quarter because of the unrest.
Europe a vaccine leader, Breton says
Europe has emerged as the biggest vaccine-producing continent in the world and makes enough doses in less than a month to administer third shots to its population, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton said.
Europe “is the world’s pharmacy,” he said Sunday in an interview on CNews. The region and the US need to do more to get vaccines to Africa, he said, in part because of the importance of heading off new viral variants.
Breton cited European initiatives to help Senegal, South Africa and Rwanda to manufacture vaccines. The fight against emerging Covid-19 variants is crucial, he said.
Pfizer for kids eyed by Halloween
Scott Gottlieb, a board member of the Pfizer Inc. and the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, said Covid-19 vaccines for kids could arrive as soon as Halloween this year.
Pfizer has said it will have data on Covid-19 vaccines for children by the end of September, and the FDA will take “weeks, not months,” to evaluate the data and make a decision, he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
“In a best-case scenario, given that timeline they’ve just laid out, you could potentially have a vaccine available to children age five to 11 by Halloween,” Gottlieb said. Parents should consult with pediatrician to decide the number of doses and dosage for vaccinating their kids, he added.
Murthy signal on global vaccine supply
President Joe Biden will announce his next steps to boost the global vaccine supply before this year’s United Nations General Assembly begins, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said.
Biden is weighing a multilateral meeting ahead of the UN leaders’ sessions aimed at vaccine supply, and has said he will announce new vaccine measures this month. Murthy told CNN on Sunday that the announcement will precede the UN sessions.
“The president will be making announcements ahead of the UN General Assembly about additional measures that we’re taking to help vaccinate the world,” Murthy said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The session at which world leaders address the UN begins on September 21. Biden said on Thursday that he’d make the announcement, though hasn’t yet signaled what it will be.
Israel prepping for fourth dose
Israel is making preparations to ensure it has sufficient vaccine supply in case a fourth round of Covid-19 shots is needed, the country’s top health official said on Sunday.
“We don’t know when it will happen; I hope very much that it won’t be within six months, like this time, and that the third dose will last for longer,” Health Ministry Director General Nachman Ash said in an interview with Radio 103FM. Bloomberg News
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